John Chester Eno (S&B 1869)
Financier. Yale University. Skull and Bones. aka “Merchant Prince”
He also collected records and biographical notes of the Durant family. He was a cousin of both Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fowle Durant, the founders of Wellesley College.
About 1909 he took up his residence in Wellesley, Mass., where he died March 1, 1914, in the 68th year of his age. He was buried in Albany.
Returning to New York he was connected with the of “Church Polity,” 1878, a series of articles which had been contributed by Rev. Charles Hodge, D D, Professor in Princeton Seminary, to the Princeton Review, and prepared a “History of the First Presbyterian Church,” Morristown, with genealogical data.[4]
Around 1899 - Eno returned to the US and inherited a sizeable fortune upon his father’s death in 1908, yet left nothing by debts upon his own demise.[5]
1893 - He returned to New York stock surrendered to the Federal authorities. He was admitted to $20,000 bail upon which he remained at liberty until the indictment against him was quashed. Nothing resulted from several other indictments against him in the State Courts.[5]
He was in business in Canada, residing in Quebec and interested in Canadian railway lines He was treasurer of the Lower Laurentian Railway Co, in the Province of Quebec.[4]
There was a run on the bank, whose debts were made good by bank trustees such as Amos Eno (John’s father), Isaac Noah Phelps and William Walter Phelps. And when it comes to runs, no one ran faster than John Eno who escaped to Canada, causing an international incident. He could not be extradicted under the existing treatie because bank “defalcation” was not a covered felony.[5]
1884 - As President of Second National Bank he appropriated $4,000,000 of its Funds. Sought Refuge in Canada. Fought Extradition for Nine Years and Then Returned. Indictment Quashed. Father Saved Bank. John C. Eno gained notoriety in 1884 when it was discovered that he had appropriated to his own uses nearly $4,000,000 of the funds of the Second National Bank. A few years previously his father, who said to have been worth $20,000,000, made him President of the bank though he was then in his early thirties. In the Spring of 1884 the younger Eno suffered heavy losses in the stock market and used the bank’s money to cover himself. When the news of his defalcations came out he fled to Canada and successfully fought extradition there. United States Senator Elihu Root (Eucleian) was the Federal District Attorney at the time. Father Ducey of St. Leo’s Roman Catholic Church went with Eno to Canada. Amos R. Eno saved the Second National Bank by depositing in it $3,500,000 worth of securities and $1,000,000 in cash. Its survived a run of the day and a half, but Eno’s defalcation, coming as it did all the heels of the failures of Grant & Wad and the Marine Bank, helped to create a panic in Wall Street in 1884.[5]
From 1882 to 1893 - President of the Second National Bank in New York City.[4]
17 Jul 1878 - married Elizabeth Frances, daughter of Thomas and Lucy (Bugden) Stantial She died in 1885, and May 19, 1887, he married her sister, Lucy B., who survives him with a daughter, also a son by the first marriage. Two daughters by the first marriage are deceased. The son graduated from Union University asa Bachelor of Engineering m 1904. The daughter is a student at Wellesley College.
1873 went abroad and remained a year and a half.[4]
After graduation he was for sometime in the banking house of Morton, Bliss & Co.[4]
1869 - Graduated Yale, Skull and Bones Patriarch.[1]
Died 28 Feb 1914, from Brochial pneumonia. Age 66
Brother … William Phelps Eno (S&B 1882)
[3] - Skull and Bones Membership List by David Luhrssen
[4] - Yale Obituary - Page 69 / On the page 596
[5] - Webmousepublications.com - The Eno Embezzlement Case
[6] - Find a Grave - John Chester Eno (S&B 1869)
[7] - FYI - Wiki - Panic of 1884
[8] - Great frauds in history: the downfall of Ferdinand Ward – the “Napoleon of finance”
[9] - sandiegohistory.org - U.S. Grant, Jr.: A Builder of San Diego
[11] - SPOTLIGHT ON: New York City Comptroller. Edward V. Loss was the first elected Comptroller.
[15] - Article - James D Fish Clemency by President Grover Cleveland
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